Whispers on the Edge of Dark
by Grav
Summary: There are always whispers of murder in the streets of London, and Helen is determined to follow them.
1. Chapter 1

**AN**: This was supposed to be 2000 words long. And then Mary Kelly decided she would like to be a hero, and here we are.

**Rating**: Teen

**Disclaimer**: Not mine, but that doesn't stop me from thinking about it a lot!

**Spoilers**: At least as far as "For King and Country".

**Characters**: Helen Magnus, James Watson, Nikola Tesla, Nigel Griffin, John Druitt and Mary Kelly (historical).

**Summary**: There are always whispers of murder in the streets of London, and Helen is determined to follow them.

* * *

**Whispers on the Edge of Dark**

_Chapter 1_

There are always whispers of murder on the streets of London. Never too loudly on her streets, of course, for those are well lit by gaslights and often patrolled by Scotland Yard, and the whispers are chased away to streets emptier and more dark. In Helen's neighbourhood, the whispers occur in clubs, where the men of society gather to discuss the topic with each other to spare their wives the anguish of having to hear about it from a person instead of the newspaper. Helen has no desire to break into that particular arena. The information she fought to hard for the right to glean at Oxford was useful, and she has little need to hear the casual conversations of men. She hears enough from James and John to suspect it would drive her mad anyway.

But these murders, these murders are different. She knows that James has all but abandoned their medical practice to consult with the Yard. Nikola and Nigel help him where they can, their skill sets being particularly suited to reconnaissance and the work of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee now that they have mastered control of them. John, who is much absent on business, remains aloof from the entire proceeding, save at the club where he cannot help but be drawn into idle chatter about it. And they have quite effectively shut her out.

It infuriates her, because she had thought they had all moved beyond that. Beyond thinking she was weaker, inferior, and accepting her as an equal on account of her intellect, and yet their conversation stills when she enters the lab, and every time she tries to broach the subject, to tease out a theory with James so that he will stop looking so haggard and possibly smile again, they refuse to let her.

She is reminded uncomfortably of the fear she felt in those initial days after they had taken the blood, that they would hate and shun her for what she had convinced them to do. That they would regard her as Eve, and drive her forth for all they had been her willing accomplices.

Those fears proved unfounded of course, muffled in no small part by the initial desperation of the days that followed Nikola's transformation. She and James had spent nearly all their time in the laboratory, desperately trying to come up with some sort of medication that would suffice to dull his unearthly cravings.

After the relative calmness of his turning, Nikola had fallen into a terrible fever, crying out in his native tongue which none of them spoke, and completely losing his reason. Mercifully, their relative isolation protected them from uncomfortable questions, but by the second day of his torture, Helen somewhat desperately and certainly without James's knowledge, had gone so far as to give him her own blood, which calmed his madness long enough for James to finish his work on the treatment.

It was she who pinpointed the change the blood had wrought in James, and she who reassured Nigel when he began to fear he was fading from the very earth. And of course it was she who had seen to John when, shortly after his power manifested, he fell victim to an unknown ailment. Again, her blood had been the cure, though this time with James's full knowledge and participation, and John's return to strength seemed to put to rest the final doubts she had about her place within the group she'd fought so hard to build. With the advent of the murders, however, Helen found herself squarely back where she began, and the idea of breaking into a circle she helped construct seems ridiculous and far to demeaning to consider seriously.

So she ignores them all, even John who calls as often as a fortune seeking fiancé might, and more so when one accounts for the part where he is not always limited to the propriety of using the front door. She is determined to wait them out, wait until they cannot possibly manage without her, and request her return. She is not unaware of how petty this makes her, but if they expect her to act like any other "mere woman", then they will find themselves fired upon with every weapon in her arsenal.

She does not lack for things to do. Her father is abroad more than he is at home lately, and the management of his Sanctuary falls more and more to her, particularly given James's distraction. She is learning more about the abnormal world than she thought possible, and is keen to take her studies in a direction her father has not yet gone. Gregory has spent most of his time helping those abnormals that humans would consider to be monsters of a sort. Helen is hoping to delve more into the lives of those abnormals that pass for human, like herself and the others of the Five, in the hope that when her father's crowded Sanctuary becomes completely over-occupied, she will have people in places where they are able to aid her.

It is not something she has mentioned to her father, however. Gregory was distinctly disapproving of her actions with the blood and she is reluctant to bring new ideas to him at the moment lest he attempt to forbid her from continuing at all. She is very, very close to complete independence from him, as much as she loves him, and she is not willing to compromise her initiative before she is able to strike out on her own.

Thus it is that she is home alone and otherwise unoccupied when Mary Kelly comes to the Sanctuary seeking aid of the fabled Dr. Gregory Magnus. Helen thinks immediately that it's just as well. Her father has a very limited interest in abnormals that don't look like something out of Greek Mythology, and given Mary's very obvious profession, it is entirely likely that he would have turned her away before Helen had the opportunity to meet her. As it is, Helen receives the woman in the kitchens. The cook staff is long gone for the night but Helen can manage a pot of tea well enough, and she thinks they'll both be a bit more at ease in so informal a setting.

"Thank you, Miss Magnus," Mary says, clutching the warm tea in both hands. The last days of September have been chill and so far October is no better. Helen does not envy Mary's many cold nights out of doors.

"Of course," Helen replies, unsure of what to say next. Oxford has prepared her for many things, but entertaining a prostitute is not one of them.

"I've heard that you offer help to people." Mary says the words all at once, Welsh vowels twisting softly, as though she's afraid she'll lose her nerve. "Special people."

"I do," Helen says, stirring her tea even though she hasn't added any sugar. "Might I inquire as to what makes you special?"

"When I touch a man's skin, I can hear what he's thinking, plain as if he were saying it." It's not the strangest thing Helen has ever heard, but it's close to. "So when I've a gentleman and we're – " she pauses and even colours a bit, though Helen suspects that's mostly because she's not used to talking shop with a lady. "Well, I hear what he's thinking."

"That must be useful," Helen says with blushing at all. She can think of half a dozen times when she would have liked to know what John was thinking.

"At times, yes." Mary sets the empty teacup down and twists her hands in her apron.

"Have you heard something you were not supposed to, then?" Helen asks. "Is there someone you need to hide from?"

"Oh, no, Miss Magnus," Mary says quickly. "It's nothing like that."

"Would you like another?" Helen asks, already lifting the teapot to pour. It seems that Miss Kelly is most comfortable when she has a reason to hold her cup.

"Thank you," the girl smiles. "You see, the pay isn't exactly good for what I do. And it's not something I want to be doing the rest of my life. So I've been using my abilities to set up a sort of retirement."

"You steal from them," Helen says, not sure whether she should be appalled or impressed at Miss Kelly's initiative.

"Only the ones what can afford it," Mary says. "There'd be no point in lifting anything from someone on the same level as me."

"What do you want, Miss Kelly?" Helen asks.

"I've got the money squirreled away in a few different places," Mary says. "No banks, of course. And with all the – troubles – I'd been hoping to put it all in one place, in case I needed to leave."

Helen's mind is working quickly now, as she sees several ends that could come from this particular line of thinking. She has been looking for a way to acquire the funds to finance her goals. If she could arrange for the safe-keeping of abnormal money, in return for being able to invest some of it of course, she would get a good start on it. In addition, Miss Kelly was in a unique position down in Whitechapel, and one that might go towards solving Helen's other problems. Of course, the first trick would be convincing Miss Kelly. Helen sets her teacup down, and look solemnly at the girl.

"There would be a few conditions," Helen says, in her sternest voice. "To begin with, no more stealing. I cannot condone such actions, and I will not launder money for you."

"Very well, Miss Magnus," Mary says, and Helen wonders if she has that much laid away of if she's just that scared.

"Second, I would like to invest the money and I would keep the profits from it."

"I don't know how that works, Miss, but so long as I get back what I paid you, it doesn't matter what you do with it in the meantime," Mary says.

"Last," Helen says, taking a deep breath and hoping this doesn't scare the girl off entirely. "I want you to return to Whitechapel for the time being and keep an ear out for news on the Ripper."

Mary hesitates, and Helen is concerned immediately that she has pushed too far. The girl sets down her teacup with resolve and looks up to meet her gaze.

"I will do it, Miss Magnus," she says, hands twisting in her apron again. "I didn't know Lizzie or Cat, but I've plenty of friends down there, and no desire to see them end up like they did, or the others before them."

Helen reaches out and takes Mary's hands without thinking about it. Belatedly, she remembers the girl's power, but screws up her courage and doesn't so much as flinch.

"It only works on men," Mary says, leaning forward. "And thank goodness, or I'd never have a moment to myself!"

Helen smiles, and begins the most unorthodox partnership of her life so far.

* * *

**To be continued...****  
**


	2. Chapter 2

**Whispers on the Edge of Dark**

_Chapter 2_

October seems unconscionably long. The weather stays cool, but not so cold as to drive people off of the streets. Gregory has written from Germany to say that he will be staying on another month, and Helen is not sorry for his absence. It is not because John has taken to calling more often, if anything the exact opposite is true. Rather it is that Helen spends most of her free hours meeting more humanoid abnormals that Mary Kelly had become acquainted with over the years. The housekeeper does not approve, but knows her place well enough that she will not write to Gregory and alert him to his daughter's actions.

Despite her father's absence, John's distance has not decreased. Although she has made her own intentions quite clear, even to the point of saying the actual words, which is something they have always avoided before, he persists in bringing James or Nigel with him when he calls, or allowing the housekeeper to catch him late in the evenings and show him out. And he has not come to her rooms privately, even though she's as much as asked him if he is still able to travel in that manner. If not for the ring on her finger, she would believe that he has changed both his mind and his intentions.

James has set his melancholia against a backdrop of cocaine. Helen is not sure if he is aiming to dull his awareness to the point where he forgets that he cannot solve the murders, or if he is hoping that the answer lies somewhere in his drugged haze. Nigel still patrols the streets at night, but Nikola has been distracted by some experiment or other, and Helen is so angry with him they haven't spoken since the middle of the month. By the time October winds down, the Five have all but fractured, and Helen fears her own heart with be next.

The first eight days of November are like a dream after the loneliness of the two and a half months that preceded it. John does not visit, pleading business in Southampton, but every day some new trinket arrives on her doorstep, until at last even the housekeeper will smile at the mention of John's name and admit that maybe he is at last doing things properly. On the morning of the eighth, there are two deliveries that whet her anticipation for the evening to arrive. The first is a card from John, saying that he will arrive this evening after dinner, which in their code means he will share a pot of tea, be shown the door, and then be waiting for her in her room when she gets there.

The second is a message from Mary Kelly, the one woman in London that might be safe from the Ripper. The message that had been delivered is verbal and brief, and barely makes it to her at all thanks to the scruples of her ever-vigilant housekeeper. The woman has come to tolerate most of Helen's eccentricities without batting an eyelash, leastaways where Helen can see her, but if she views John Druitt as unwelcome after nightfall, she has equally strong feelings about unwashed street waifs at the breakfast hour. Helen had heard the ruckus and relieved the poor girl of her message, sending her on her way with enough coin to buy a hot meal every day for a week.

Helen spends the day organizing her files on the abnormals Mary has introduced her to during their association, which helps in some measure to calm her nerves. Most of her new acquaintances are fairly harmless to society, in fact most of them only seem to harm themselves, and Helen has been working to try to help them along in whatever way she can. More than once, she has found herself wishing for her father's experienced advice, James's assistance or John's unprofessional yet no less heartwarming assurances that she is a capable physician for all she lacks the credentials to back it up, but she cannot deny that there is a not inconsequential thrill in knowing that she has done this entirely by herself.

Two hours before dinner, and some three before John's arrival, Helen sends for a hansom cab, and bids the driver to wait when he arrives in Whitechapel. The man's reluctance is clear across his broad features, that this is no place for a lady, but Helen assures him she knows where she is going, and it is not quite dark enough yet for him to be truly worried. He has only to wait for her return.

The streets of Whitechapel are not so well lit as those near her home, and the whispers of murder ring ever more loudly in her ears, but she is not afraid. She has faced a vampire and allowed herself to be teleported across the country in the blink of an eye. Additionally, she carries a loaded pistol in her bag and a knife is strapped to her leg in a tremendously unladylike, if somewhat convenient, location.

Mary's rooms are not completely distasteful, but Helen is still grateful when her contact meets her on the street. The air is significantly cleaner, to begin with, and there are some things that Helen hopes to never smell again. Mary is dressed for work, her dress cut significantly lower than Helen's own, and her hair and face are powdered to within an inch of her life. Tonight Mary's hair is a shocking red that flares quite noticeably in the gaslights where the effect is not altogether unappealing, though Helen is still glad Miss Kelly could only read the thoughts of men.

"Miss Magnus," Mary says in greeting, her manners only marred by her accent. "I'm so glad you could come."

"Thank you for sending for me," Helen replies. "I assume that you have news?"

"I do," Mary shivers, pulling her entirely insufficient shawl closer about her shoulders. "I must say, I've had a rather nasty fright of it."

"What happened?" Helen's concern is quite real. For all Mary is from another walk of life, she is still an abnormal and Helen has vowed, however privately, to protect her and all her ilk.

"I met him," Mary says, her voice a whisper in the dark, a whisper that joins the others hissing murder up and down the street. "Last night while I was on my way home."

"Dear God, are you all right?" Helen takes her by the shoulders and looks at her more closely, trying to see if the make-up is hiding anything besides years of hard living.

"I'm quite all right, thank you." Mary seems both taken aback and flattered by Helen's concern.

"Please continue," is all Helen can think to say.

"I felt him coming, you see," Mary goes on. "In my mind. Before, I always had to be touching a man, and then it was easy enough to pick up dirty secrets for blackmail or find out where in the house he had hidden his treasures. But with him, it was much more powerful."

"Perhaps your own powers are increasing," Helen offers, mostly in response to the hollow horror around the edges of Mary's voice.

"I suppose," she allows. "In any case, I led him a merry chase until I found a pub where I knew they wouldn't throw me out for lingering."

"Miss Kelly, does he know where you live?" Helen asks, concern creeping back into her voice. "Perhaps you should return with me to the Sanctuary."

"I don't think so, Miss Magnus," the girl says. "Besides which, there are too many others I have to protect. I cannot leave them here alone on the chance he knows where my flat is."

"I commend your bravery," Helen says. "Did you catch a glimpse of him at all?"

"I'm afraid not, save that he was very tall," Miss Kelly replies. "But when I came out of the pub, I found this on the ground where a man might have stood to look in at the window."

She offers up a white handkerchief, fabric much too fine to belong to anyone who might live in the area. Helen feels a swell of excitement cresting through her. When she brings this to James, he will _have_ to take her involvement seriously, and then they will be complete as they were before, all five of them working towards a single goal.

"I must go," Mary says once Helen has carefully placed the handkerchief in her bag.

"Do be careful," Helen says, feeling much, much older than she really is. "Make absolutely sure he cannot follow you home. If he suspects you have seen him, even as little as you did, you are not safe. If he should recognize you – "

"They don't tend to look at our faces, Miss Magnus," Mary says almost wistfully, for her face is not unbecoming. "And I wear all manner of wigs to stop men from recognizing me."

"That's as may be," Helen says, once again impressed in spite of herself, "but please keep me informed as to your whereabouts. You are welcome at the Sanctuary at any time."

"My thanks," Mary replies with feigned courtliness. She disappears into the night, and Helen does not know that is the last time she will ever see her alive.

Once safely inside the hansom and on the way back home, Helen wastes no time in examining the handkerchief as closely as the dark and the swaying lantern will allow. She cannot tell much, save her initial assessment that the cloth is fine, until her fingers skirt the edge of the fabric and she traces over three letters that nearly stop her heart. The shapes are familiar beneath her fingers, like old friends held dear. She has always planned on adding letters to her name, but these were the letters she had hoped to add to her heart. She'd stitched them herself, after all, as joke when he proposed.

She is suddenly and quite noisily sick all over the inside of the cab. The driver hears her and stops, coming to check on her with great concern. She apologizes for the mess, and promises him nearly four times the fare if only he will get her to Dr. James Watson as soon as humanly possible. As the carriage takes off again, she quells her stomach with ruthless determination, mind spinning beyond her ability to control it or to elucidate coherent thought.

She had known, accepted even, that the road to the Ripper would be laced with horrors and the stuff of her worst nightmares. She did not expect them to be so utterly personal.

James, for once, is home. She can see the light in his office and prays that he is alone. As soon as she descends from the cab, waving off the driver as he tries to offer his arm, she hears the violin and knows that he is indeed without company, and probably well into his evening's cocaine laced entertainments, but she has no time to judge. She waits until the cab has pulled away and then begins hammering on the door until he opens it.

His eyes are red from the drug, and his usually impeccable attire is all out of sorts. He looks indecent, and there are a hundred different reasons why she should not be out of the eyes of the public with him, but one searing reason why she should, so she pushes past him backwards into his flat and drags him along when he hesitates.

Once she reaches his sitting room, her courage fails and she crumples in a faint for the first time her life. She sits on the floor weeping, skirts spread out around her like she is picnicking by the Thames and James shakes off the drug's effects as he sits beside her.

"Helen, what on Earth has happened?" His voice is thick with concern and mesolimbics.

"I've solved it, James," she gasps. "The Ripper."

"Helen," he starts, and suddenly she is inhumanly angry.

"Did you know?" she demands. She is mortified at the extent of her hysteria, but decides she has every right and strikes him across the chest as hard as she can. "Did you know and keep me in the dark because you were afraid it would break me?"

"Know of what?" James answers, hands catching hers and stilling them where she would have hit him again. "Helen, I've not had a breakthrough on that case since the day I began it. What do you know?"

"The Ripper," she says again, voice soft and bereft of life. "The Ripper is John."

* * *

**To be continued...****  
**


	3. Chapter 3

**Whispers on the Edge of Dark**

_Chapter 3_

James stares at her like she has gone completely mad, but when she hands over the handkerchief, his face closes completely and he looks all at once impossibly old. She cannot bear his sense of sorrow and betrayal on top of her own, and finds herself weeping again, this time with his arms firmly around her as though he needs grounding as much as she does.

Helen comes to her senses to find James's landlady on the scene looking absolutely terrified.

"Mr. Watson, Miss Magnus," she gasps. "Has someone died?"

"No," James chokes out, much to Helen's relief because she's not sure she could speak if commanded by the Queen herself. "Just some terrible news. Could you fetch some tea, perhaps? And if your nephew is available, I should like to send some messages."

"Of course." The poor woman quits the room as speedily as possible, and Helen can hear her yelling for the boy on her way down the stairs.

James holds her hands, taking her pulse quite unsubtly as he does so, and then pulls her to her feet and leads her to the one chair that is not completely covered by his paraphernalia. He kneels before her, as unwilling to let her go as she is to be released, and breathes so calmingly that before long she finds herself matching him. She would curse him for treating her like some hysterical patient, except at the moment that's exactly what she is, and she needs whatever coolness he can provide.

"Mr. Watson?" They boy is not much older than the girl who delivered Mary's message earlier in the afternoon, and unlike the landlady he does not enter the room.

"Go at once to Messers Nigel Griffin and Nikola Tesla, and inform them that I require their attendance immediately, no matter what else they are doing. Tell them," James hesitates. "Tell them that I said I don't care what else they're doing. Just to make it here with all speed."

The boy gives a quick nod to James and a slightly deeper one to Helen before he leaves, and then the tea tray is brought in. Helen is reluctant to relinquish James's hand, even for tea, but once he passes her the cup she feels better immediately. He rises and crosses to the liquor table, where he prepares four glasses and a bottle of whiskey.

"Do you want to tell me and have me inform the others, or would you rather wait and tell us all at once," he says, carefully unfastening the lid of the bottle. She thinks she might scream if he treats her any more delicately. She's not sure she won't scream anyway.

She finds herself telling the story, the whole story, right from her acquaintance with Mary Kelly to the horrific events of this evening. James says nothing while she speaks, only takes the cup away from her when it begins to look like she might shatter it and lets her grasp his hands instead. When she finishes, he says nothing for a moment and when he meets her eyes, she is surprised to see tears glistening there.

"Helen, I am sorry," he says with so much emotion in his voice she's afraid they might both drown in it. "I'm sorry I withdrew so callously because I was ashamed at my own failure, leaving you alone with this work all these weeks. And I'm sorry that it's John. From this day on, I swear it, we will work together, as physicians, as friends, and, if you will permit me, at the Sanctuary itself."

Helen is spared having to marshal her thoughts to formulate an adequately heartfelt reply to James's emphatic statement by the noisy arrival of Tesla.

"James?" he calls out before he's even come through the door, and when he sees them, he stops cold in his tracks. The vampire's eyes are black, though neither his face nor his nails are elongated, and Helen deduces that he has forgone a cab altogether and simply run here as fast as he could. "Helen? What – "

"Wait, please," Helen says, once again appalled at her own weakness. "Please, wait for Nigel. I cannot bear it more than once again tonight."

Tesla has never taken to waiting very well, and helps himself to the whiskey without asking. James gestures for him to pour it out for all of them, and even though Helen never drinks spirits straight, she accepts the glass with gratitude. She sits as though made of stone while Tesla paces and James berates him for fidgeting. Just when she's ready to admonish them both to stop acting like children, Nigel arrives, out of breath and red in the face, and James finally begins to talk.

Helen watches them react as though she viewing the scene from outside her own body. Nigel deflates, like all the air is being let out of him in a slow leak that leaves him slumped and boneless in his chair, until he's broken and cradling his head in his hands. Nikola's face twists in a kind of pain she wasn't aware he could feel, and a desperate longing that she can't identify settles over his countenance until she realizes he's looking at _her_ as James talks, and his hands twitch as though he wishes he had the right to hold her and hates himself for wishing it.

"What are we going to do?" Nigel asks in a dead voice when James is done. "The Vigilance chaps haven't a hope of catching him, or of keeping him on the chance that they do."

"Nigel," James reproves him, but Helen has had enough. She shakes her head and straightens, willing herself to be strong in the face of this, whatever it is.

"No," she says sharply, and they all look to her. "No, Nigel is right. We know that John has not been well, and I thought my treatments had cured him of his ailment, but clearly there is some deeper malady or perversion that none of us noticed. We must apprehend him, and determine a method by which he may be held."

"Helen," James says softly, and it very nearly breaks her again.

"We must catch him," she repeats. "James, you promised."

She can see he is unhappy, but he relents

"I can hold him, for however long," Nikola says. "If only his teleportation could be prevented. My strength is more than a match for his."

"How far do you expect we shall have to take this?" Nigel asks.

Only this morning, Helen had been lamenting losing the close-knit circle of companionship the Five provided. And though one of them was gone, those remaining seemed ready to follow her lead once more, as they had when she proposed her experiment in the first place. She would give anything to be lonely again.

"As far as needed," is all she says. "He must be stopped."

They turn to planning then, dividing Whitechapel into quadrants for the four of them to patrol. It is well past the dinner hour before Helen remembers not only that she hasn't eaten, but that John might very well be sitting in her parlour as she plots his capture. She is about to tell James as much when there is a knock at the door, and the landlady's nephew appears once more.

"A message, Miss," he says. "From a Mr. Druitt."

The temperature in the room drops by several degrees, but the lad does not seem to notice. Helen holds out her hand for the card, and sees James fetch a coin for the messenger. She waits until the door is shut before she starts opening the envelope, but cannot read further than _My Dearest Helen_ before she has to stop and pass the paper over to Nigel.

"He regrets that he is unable to call on you tonight, as promised," Nigel says after a few moments. "His business in Southampton will require one more day as he ties up loose ends."

"He's not in Southampton," James says. "He's here, in the city, tonight."

"James, we're not ready," Tesla says. "I need at least a day to build something with enough power to stop him from jumping, and that's only if you're willing to go out with untested model. If we go tonight, we'll have to kill him."

"Then we'll kill him," Helen says, before anyone can berate Nikola on his abrupt wording. She does not quite manage to say it without her voice breaking.

It comes to nothing, however, though they spend most of the night in the streets watching from the shadows, alert for the telltale sights and sounds of John's movements. When Nikola brings Helen home, scarcely two hours before dawn, he brings her straight to the door with no thought of what anyone watching might think. The housekeeper is beyond scandalized when she opens the door, but one look at Helen's face silences her.

"You must leave," Helen tells her, too exhausted to be graceful about it. "You and everyone else."

"But Miss Magnus," the housekeeper begins.

"Please," Helen says. "Please just go. It is not safe for you here right now. I will send for you when it is."

The housekeeper does not know what goes on in the basement of Gregory Magnus's house, but she has more than a few suspicions about it, and is a wise enough woman to take Helen at her word. Once she has retreated to the kitchen to make one last breakfast, Helen stands in the hall with Nikola, so tired she cannot think of anything but her bed.

"Do you want me to stay?" he asks, far more gently than he might have under different circumstances. It breaks her heart.

"No," she says. "I want to be alone. He hasn't hurt me all this time. He won't for one more day."

She twists the ring off her finger and places it on the table here John's card from the previous morning still sits. Nikola takes his leave and she bolts the door behind him. She can hear the housekeeper locking everything else, for all the good it will do, and retreats to her bedroom feeling as safe as she can under the circumstances.

It is late in the afternoon when she wakes, and for a moment she thinks it was all some horrible dream. But the sun is too high, and her stomach too unsettled and her finger too bare for it to be anything but the truth. She dresses for the evening, measuring her wardrobe against practicality and function. She is nearly finished when she hears a noise downstairs in the front hallway and starts abruptly as she recognizes what it is. He is in the house, and James is not to call until after dinner.

She barely dares to breathe, waiting for him to appear at the foot of her bed and wondering what she will do when he does. How can she face him and play the loving fiancée when she knows what he has done? Downstairs, something smashes, and following the sound of the break comes the sound of John disappearing from her house. She grabs the pistol and runs down the stairs to see what has happened, and finds the hall mirror broken to shards and her ring lying on the floor amidst the wreckage.

_He knows_, she thinks. _And yet…_

Helen clamps down on any feelings that his sparing her might stir with an iron will.

* * *

In the evening post, she reads of Mary Kelly's death. The Ripper followed her home, it reports, and the scene is too graphic for even print to describe. And no one could hear her scream, even when she read his thoughts and realized who he was. When the night comes, Helen packs the pistol and shot into her bag and leaves for Whitechapel. Her world is already broken, and if only she can hold on to those edges of anger and betrayal, it will take little effort on her part to bring it fully to its end.

* * *

**fin**

Gravity_Not_Included, January 16, 2011

Thank you to oparu and eldanna who betaed, and to everyone who helped me hammer out the timeline as I was writing.

**NOTES**: Yes, I know that James talks about discussing the 7th victim with John over brandies at the club. Since the date he gives is in April, I am choosing to ignore it. ;) There have been several wonderful meta pieces posted lately, but the Ripper story is full of holes, so poking at it is, I think, allowable.

Admittedly, my reasons for wanting the Ripper timeline to be as compressed as possible (Aug. 31, 1888 to mid November 1888) are personal and have little to do with the show itself, but I think there is a valid reason in the canon as well as in my own story. Mary Kelly comes _very close_ to catching him, and once Helen and James get on the case, there's really not a lot John could do to avoid them. By limiting John to "the canonical five" and then adding two more before Molly, the only canon that doesn't fit is James's remark about April (which doesn't make sense anyway), and the part where "John Druitt"'s body was found in the Thames on November 10, 1888.

(You'll also note that I neglected to mention Ashley. I suppose that I am hoping Helen got pregnant on August 30th or just before, that she's about 10 weeks along at the end of the story, and that she hasn't noticed yet because she's been busy and stressed. Which is a stretch, I'll admit, but workable.)

**Between the complex unknowns of the actual histories and the spotty dates we have in the canon itself, I think there's plenty of space for this story, and the idea of Mary Kelly being the first source of the Sanctuary's funds (before the government got involved) was just too good to pass up.  
**


End file.
